


Down the Rabbit-Hole

by Geonn



Category: Farscape, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Drama, F/F, First Time, Mash-up, Romance, Stargate: Continuum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:50:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/pseuds/Geonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years ago, a computer failure caused the space shuttle <i>Intrepid</i> to crash into the Atlantic. Mission Commander Samantha Carter's body was never recovered. This is where she went.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down the Rabbit-Hole

Sometimes the scenes play themselves over in her nightmares, like clips from a movie stuck on a loop. The interference came out of nowhere and completely destroyed their instruments. It was all she could do to keep the ship stable long enough to get her people to safety. Remaining in the shuttle meant certain death, so she did the only thing that granted her a chance of survival: she abandoned ship. Flashes of blue and white surrounded her, sickening her, and she credited it to acute oxygen deprivation and, though she didn't remember falling or hitting the water, drowning. She tried to swim, turned, and found herself in the middle of an asteroid field. 

Ships the design of which she had never seen before swarmed around her, one of them coming close enough to change her trajectory. She screamed for Mission Control, but her radio was utterly silent as she spun through the ether. Her trajectory turned her until she saw the most magnificent thing she'd ever seen. 

Moya.

She woke in her quarters, drenched with sweat. She pushed herself up, bending one knee so that her foot was flat on the mattress. "Pilot, how about a little air-conditioning? I'm roasting in here."

"My apologies, Commander."

Sam smiled. On a living ship that housed six different species, temperature control was an art as much as it was a science. Sam often found herself sweltering while Chiana was running around in a fur-lined parka. She checked the chronometer that she kept dialed to Earth-time and saw it was nearly six am. The small calendar on her desk showed that it was March 21. Springtime. She closed her eyes and thought about the trees coming to life with vividly green buds, the little flowers of such amazing color peeking up between the weeds. The sound of lawn mowers and chirping birds...

She got out of bed and got dressed. The blue NASA jumpsuit she'd been wearing under her spacesuit had been mended and stitched so often that she felt like a patchwork woman when she wore it. She folded down the top part and tied the sleeves around her waist. She knew if it was this hot in her quarters, then the hangar bay would be equally hot. She wiped the sweat from her chest, arms and neck and put on a tank top. She checked her toiletries and grimaced.

"Sure, they mastered FTL travel, but ask them for a decent stick of deodorant..." She gave up and wet a towel in the basin, drenching it before she wiped under her arms. The next time they stopped at a planet or a bazaar or a space station, she was going to pay whatever they asked for a decent bath. 

Her hair, at least, had been washed thanks to Chiana and her stockpile of shampoos and conditioners. Nebari apparently required a lot of product to keep their hair manageable. Sam tied it into a thick ponytail and finally pulled on her boots and left her quarters. 

A DRD was attracted to the noise of her awakening, and it whirred around the corner and began sweeping the corridor ahead of her as if escorting her to the hangar. She recognized it from the red paint she'd added to its hull. "Good morning, Mrs. Frisby. How did you sleep?"

The droid chittered in a language she couldn't begin to comprehend. Its small antennae were fully lifted, shining impossibly bright on the walls to light her way. The lights in the habitation area were always kept dim; the first few months aboard Moya had gotten everyone pretty much acclimated to the same thirty-six hour sleep schedule, but they took advantage of napping as often as possible. Sam hoped for at least an hour of peace to work before people started waking.

When she arrived without stubbing her toe, she bid farewell to the little droid and looked at the shadow-draped object. The walls and floor of the cell she had originally called her home on this ship were still covered with her calculations. She knew she had been pulled through some kind of wormhole to travel such an unimaginable distance in the blink of an eye. Wormholes were out there, she had no doubt, but attempting to traverse one in a spaceship in the emptiness of space was like trying to saddle a wild stallion and run the Kentucky Derby.

A wormhole needed to be tamed. It needed to be drawn and housed. She stared at the cobbled-together portal she had been building for three years and tried to think of what the next step would be. 

Wormholes were ovoid by nature, so she designed the portal to be a ring. It was seven feet high and equally as wide. The metallic braces were thick. She approached and touched the small emitters that would transfer the energy of the wormhole to form a stable event horizon. In her mind, it would be a flat blue pool of energy. She could almost feel the potential energy buzzing through the device even though it had yet to be hooked up to a power source.

"Carter! Tell your little friend that I don't need to be awake simply because _you_ are awake."

Sam smiled without turning around. "Mrs. Frisby was just checking to see if you need anything. She likes you."

"The feeling is _not_ mutual. Why do you call her that?"

"Kids' book," Sam murmured. She stepped around the side of the portal and looked up at Aeryn. Her hair was down and still mussed from sleep. She wore her black tank top and leather trousers and Sam had to quickly look away. She focused on the curve of her portal and brushed it with her thumb. 

Aeryn walked forward, hands on her hips as she stared at the device. "You're despairing. You haven't added or removed anything from this... thing in three months. You just come in here and stare at it between crises. Either it's finished or not."

"I need to find a way to harness the wormhole. I can't just dial it up on the phone and summon it to the device. I need some sort of... draw. And I don't know what that could possibly be."

Aeryn stepped through the middle of the ring and into Sam's blind spot. Sam tensed and kept focused on the machine. 

"Do you know, it was Chiana who figured it out? The reason you've hit this wall. She came to the same conclusion you did."

Sam closed her eyes. 

"Even if you built this perfectly, even if you harnessed a wormhole and brought this thing to life and stepped through, you can't know where you will end up. If you want to use it to get back to Erf, then there needs to be a second device there to link up to this one. This device will only slingshot you blindly. You could up even farther away than you are now."

"So I should just give up?" Sam's voice was bitter, more than she expected, and she stifled the apology that threatened to rise from her lips. "I can't give up. I'll finish this step, I'll figure out how to build the sender, and we'll worry about building a receiver later."

Aeryn laughed coldly. "Sure. It's a small brainteaser. You have to go home and build the device you need to get home."

"Catch-22," Sam said. "That's another book reference. Don't sweat it."

She could hear Aeryn's footsteps as she paced behind her. Sam wanted to turn, to see what she was doing, but she refused. She kept her back to Aeryn and opened an access panel on the side of her portal. Everything looked ship-shape, but she fiddled with it just to have something to do.

"So you're trapped her for another few months." Aeryn's voice softened. "Would that be so bad?"

Sam closed her eyes, pressed her palm flat against the side of the portal, and rested her head against her wrist. She tensed when Aeryn's hands alighted on her shoulders, but she didn't pull away. 

"Please don't."

"Carter... _Samantha_." She squeezed. "Stop torturing yourself."

"She'll be waiting for me."

Aeryn sighed and stepped forward. Her body was warm against Sam's back and felt so goddamn inviting. She bit the inside of her cheek to counteract the signals being sent to her brain. Sam was smart enough to explain what had happened back on Earth; she'd seen it following the _Challenger_ explosion. Even if they found the wreckage of the _Intrepid_ , the absence of her remains wouldn't mean anything. It had gone down over the Atlantic, so everyone would just say she'd drifted out to sea. 

A state funeral. She would achieve mythical status for going down with her ship. She would be revered and honored for saving her crew. There might even be a Samantha Carter Day celebrated by schoolchildren. And, in time, her girlfriend would stop mourning and move on with her life. 

She and Janet Fraiser had been together only ten months. Their courtship was accelerated due to the illegality of it; Janet was a doctor on the NASA medical team that cleared her for the mission. They met illicitly off-base a few times and, knowing they didn't have time to do things properly, began sleeping together almost immediately. 

Sam knew that three years was far too long to hold onto a ten-month relationship. But she had promised Janet the day before launch that she would be back. If there was a chance Janet was still waiting, pining, hoping...

"I'm not one to pine, Carter. We've been through this dance, and I'm sick of it. Don't take my need for granted, because it will not always be here whenever you decide you want it." She lightly kissed Sam's neck.

Sam shuddered and tightened her grip on the portal. "Please... don't."

Aeryn slid her hands down Sam's back, ending on her hips. After a moment, she pushed away. "Fine. If you need any help with this damn machine, ask Zhaan." She stepped around Sam and walked out of the hangar.

"Aeryn, stop."

Without turning, Aeryn said, "And tell your friend Versbee to stop waking me up."

Sam closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the side of her portal as a tear streaked down her cheeks.

#

Zhaan theorized that traversing an unstable wormhole without the proper protection had caused a certain connection to be formed in Sam's brain. It was nothing she could consciously control, but every now and then she received flashes. There were bits from old television programs, radio broadcasts, and even the occasional cell phone call that was bounced off charged elements in Earth's atmosphere and followed the remnants of the dispersed wormhole to settle in Sam's brain.

( _A woman's voice asking, "Any problems?" and a man says, "Well, you left the TV on. Also, your cat is dead."_ )

( _An argument followed by what she could only categorize as angry phone sex_ )

( _..."for when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can."_ )

But there was also a connection to things specific to her, otherwise insignificant things that lead her to believe that it's all a hallucination. She hears her sister-in-law calling Mark to remind him to pick up groceries. She hears a doctor calling someone to inform them that General Carter is responding well to the treatments and the cancer seems to be in total remission.

One night, four years after she leaves, she hears Janet.

( _"You understand why I would be skeptical."_

_"I do. Of course I do."_

_"I've spent a long time getting over her. And to have you walk in and... a-and..."_

_"I know, Janet. You can take as long as you need to believe this is real. That I'm real. I lost you once, and I'm not going to risk losing you again because I'm impatient."_ )

Sam sat up in bed, gasping for air and caught mid-sob. The other voice in the dream (overheard conversation?) was hers; she was certain of it. She wiped the tears from her eyes and turned to put her feet on the floor. She couldn't help but feel a sense of impending doom in the dream. She closed her eyes and pushed her hair out of her face as she tried to put a finger on the sensation. 

Dread. Destruction. Life would go on, would continue, but not in this manner. Things were going to change. She could feel it standing up the hairs on the back of her neck, crushing down on her chest and making it hard to breath. Finally she opened her eyes and stared at the far side of her room.

Janet had someone. That much, she was certain of. She wouldn't even try to follow the logic of it or explain _how_ she knew, but she knew in her heart that through some quirk of reality she and Janet were together on Earth. After everything she'd seen and experienced in the Uncharted Territories, was it so hard to believe that somehow a doppelganger of Samantha Carter was on Earth?

Sam rose and put on her jacket and trousers over her sleepwear. When she left her room, Mrs. Frisby scooted ahead of her chirping a merry tune. Sam's heart thudded against her ribcage and she moved fast so she wouldn't chicken out or change her mind. She held the conversation in her mind. Her voice, Janet's voice, obvious affection...

Mrs. Frisby reached Aeryn's quarters first. In the time since Sam's last rejection, Aeryn had turned her unrequited desire into anger. They were still civil to each other, but they were hardly friends. Chiana had told them to just suck it up and get horizontal. Sam decided there was some heavy logic behind the sentiment. The DRD turned in a circle in front of the door, singing happily.

"Blasted, infernal..." The door slid open and she stooped to lift up the droid. "...tear your antennae off and shove them into your--"

She straightened and froze when she saw Sam barreling down on her. She took a step back, unsure if Sam was friendly or on her way to attack. Sam cupped Aeryn's face, whispered her name, and finally gave in to the four-year-long urge to kiss her. Aeryn's lips parted more out of surprise than response to the kiss, and she tossed the DRD toward the bed. It landed with an irritated chirp, and Aeryn managed to signal the door closed to cast the room into darkness.

When the kiss broke, she found her voice tainted by a weak gasp. "It's about time. What brought you around?" She dragged down the zipper of Sam's jacket and held her breath until she confirmed, yes, underneath was a strip of bare skin from her throat to her stomach. 

"I think things are going to change." She kissed Aeryn again, teasing with her tongue before pulling back. "I'm not sure how, or why, but drastically. And I think there's a chance we may not have very long. So I'm... _sick to death_... of wasting time. When all I've really wanted to do from the moment I met you is feel your body against mine."

"I think we can do something about that."

Aeryn put her hands inside Sam's jacket and pushed outward. Sam hunched her shoulders and the cloth fell away, exposing her breasts. Aeryn had seen them before, of course, on several occasions. The body swap incident had led to all kinds of exploration on all their parts, but she still remembered the full-length mirror, Sam's breasts heavy in her hands, the taste of Sam's sex on her fingers...

She kissed Sam again and guided her toward the bed. Four years of foreplay, back and forth tension, left little need or want for foreplay. Sam pushed herself back with her elbows as Aeryn was suddenly on her again. Sam's folded her bent knees out to cradle Aeryn's weight on her thighs as she tugged on the stubborn material of Aeryn's top. Aeryn sat up and crossed her arms, peeling the shirt up and away.

Sam sat up and kissed between Aeryn's breasts, eyes closed as she struggled to keep her breathing steady. She kissed her way to one nipple, took it into her mouth, and bit gently. Aeryn arched her back and growled encouragingly as she popped the button on Sam's trousers. Sam leaned forward, sucking in her stomach as Aeryn tickled the smooth skin above the waistband of Sam's underwear. 

"Don't start teasing me now, Sun," Sam said. She pressed her cheek to Aeryn's breast. "Please."

"I've waited so long." She kissed the top of Sam's head. "I have to be sure you're sure, Sam."

Sam kissed up the slope of Aeryn's chest, kissed the side of her neck, and nosed through the thick and tangled waved of Aeryn's hair to find her ear. She wet her lips and spoke in a quiet, husky voice: "I need you, Aeryn. Need your touch. I've been fighting so long, I just need you right now. Please, Aeryn." She bit Aeryn's earlobe and repeated, "Please, Aeryn."

Aeryn withdrew her hand, wet two fingers with a quick pass of her tongue, and pushed it into Sam's underwear without further delay. Sam lifted her hips off the bed, put her arm around Aeryn for balance, and leaned back to bear down on the three fingers Aeryn was currently using to tease her sex. Sam pulled her lips back against her teeth and curled the fingers of her free hand until she felt the nails biting into her palms. 

She pulled herself back up, opening her eyes to see Aeryn watching her. They kissed, and Aeryn gasped when they pulled apart. Sam met Aeryn's eyes as she wet her own fingers and reached for Aeryn's center. First she rubbed through the thick material of Aeryn's sleep attire, then she pushed it out of the way and slid two fingers over warm, inviting flesh. Aeryn grunted and her eyes rolled back, her fingers pressed tighter into Sam's sex, and they moved their crossed arms with eager determination.

Sam came first, bowing to rest her forehead on Aeryn's shoulder as she bucked against the palm molded against her. Aeryn kissed her temple, whispered Sebacean terms of endearment that made Sam smile, and then lowered her to the mattress. She removed Sam's hand from her underclothes, kissed the moist fingertips, and guided Sam's arms up. Sam pressed her palms to the bulkhead that served as a headboard as Aeryn squirmed and slithered out of her pants. Sam looked at the black patch of hair and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, unsure of what Aeryn had planned but hoping against hope that Sebaceans knew about oral sex.

Aeryn moved down the bed and lowered herself over Sam's feet. She dropped her head, pressed her breasts to Sam's feet, and slowly slid her body up the length of Sam's legs. Sam shivered and watched Aeryn's slow ascension, closing her eyes as one of Aeryn's breasts pressed between her legs. Up higher, across her stomach. Sam felt like every part of her body was being touched, covered, enveloped by Aeryn's.

When she had covered Sam's body completely and their faces were lined up, Aeryn whispered, "Your lips, your tongue..." And kept rising. Sam parted her lips and traced a path down Aeryn's chest, over her stomach, and turned her head to kiss both of Aeryn's wet thighs as her arms were pinned down by Aeryn's calves. She felt trapped, her head pinned by Aeryn's lower body, but she wasn't going to fight.

"Now you--"

"I think I know," Sam whispered. She kissed Aeryn's thigh again, then craned her neck and pressed her lips against Aeryn's sex. She parted the labia with her tongue and lifted her hands as much as she could to stroke and caress the parts of Aeryn's body she could reach. She flattened her palms against Aeryn's stomach as Aeryn settled down onto her, sinking onto Sam's tongue and forcing it deeper.

Sam kept her eyes open, staring up the long length of Aeryn's body. Aeryn looked down, her hair hanging down on either side of her face as she slowly rolled her hips. She grinned, Sam winked, and withdrew her tongue to seek out Aeryn's clitoris. Aeryn gasped and leaned forward, her cheek against the wall as her lower body tensed around Sam.

Aeryn trembled when she came, and Sam realized with a start that Sebacean women apparently ejaculated. It was on her tongue and lips, and she swallowed as Aeryn's writhing slowed and then subsided completely. Sam didn't mind her entrapment, running her fingertips over Aeryn's smooth skin until Aeryn recovered enough to slide down Sam's body. They kissed, and Aeryn stroked Sam's cheek before rolling to one side.

They lay with their bodies overlapping, Aeryn's hand on Sam's stomach while Sam covered Aeryn's mound with her hand. She idly teased the sensitive folds with her middle finger, making Aeryn cringe and twitch occasionally.

"I was going to suggest you... slide lower. It's a customary finish to that position, that the lover then kisses down to my feet before we face each other in the center of the bed and proceed with the next step."

Sam said, "Oh. Sorry."

" _No_ ," Aeryn said. "I really liked the human style."

Sam laughed and rolled onto her side. Aeryn faced her, and Sam stroked her face. Her fingers slipped into Aeryn's mouth. Sam smiled as her fingers were sucked, working her leg between Aeryn's thighs to further entangle them. 

"This sense of dread you had. Any idea how long we have until it manifests?"

Sam shook her head. "No idea." She kissed the tip of Aeryn's nose. "But we have time."

Aeryn pulled Sam to her. Sam rested her head on Aeryn's shoulder and closed her eyes. It felt so goddamn good to be held, to be in someone's arms again. She flattened her hands on Aeryn's back and fell into her first dreamless sleep in a very, very long time.

#

Sam stared at the small recorder that had somehow survived the trip through the wormhole and all the subsequent battering she'd taken. She pressed down the record button and rested her chin on her hands as she stared at the red record light. "Hey, Janet. I hope... I hope..." She looked away, rubbing her lip with her thumb. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what words would be appropriate for admitting the end of a short courtship that had ended so, so long ago. 

Aeryn stepped into the door of her room and Sam smiled at her. Aeryn saw the tape recorder and started to leave, but Sam shook her head. She held up a finger and picked up the recorder. 

"Janet... I hope you're happy. I have a feeling you are. I get the impression that both of us ended up where we're supposed to be." Aeryn walked forward and straddled Sam's right leg. She lowered herself onto it, linked her fingers behind Sam's neck, and Sam put her arm around Aeryn's waist. "I don't know if what I saw was real, but I think it was. I think the universe gave you another me to make up for the fact... I won't be back.

"And if something does happen, and if all of this does get torn apart and erased, then at least we'll be happy at the end. And I'm... very glad that we knew each other for as long as we did. I thought what we had would have taught me not to waste time, but... it's a lesson better learned late than never.

"Good-bye, Janet. Be happy."

She shut off the recorder and put it down on the table before she looked up at Aeryn. "How was that?"

"Sounded perfect."

Sam smiled and tilted her head up as Aeryn bent down and captured her lips in a kiss. They had wasted too much time. Sam wasn't going to waste any more.


End file.
